DELIGHT MAKER – This delightful young adult has never disappointed us even once. 10 years ago, the sincere 17-year old young boy who captured the hearts of noonas has over time, moving between variety programs and dramas, has established himself as the star-next-door. Romantic comedy movie <Love Forecast> is his first movie.

There’s always special preparation for a first experience. On the day of the first snowfall on the first Saturday of December, we met Lee Seunggi who was nervously excitedly anticipating the release of his first movie. “It would be great if <Love Forecast> becomes my representative project.” His voice was brimming with confidence. After sincerely capturing the hearts of noonas as a 17-year old young boy, he has never once disappointed us as he has transformed over time.

True to textbook-standard lessons, he has always given his best each time. Even when he was patching the eight provinces of Korea filming for a broadcast program, he graduated from college and even enrolled in graduate school while never taking a leave of absence. Recently, this sincere, upstanding model individual has come upon a big test called movies. Similar to a set of exam questions that one can’t estimate in advance, this particular test is like the college entrance exam – a risky challenge in which everything is determined at one time. If you’re an actor, this is also a process by which one has to go through at least once. Although this is speaking based on the past, it’s as if all the time up until now was a process prepared for this individual.

Having successfully wrapped four months of continuous filming that began in the summer, just yesterday, he checked the temporary results via monitor at the editing studio. “I’m thinking, thank goodness. They say it’s always difficult to watch a first cut, but it was so much fun! ‘This movie kills everything. It’s all-kill~’ It’s not to that overwhelming degree, but in the least, you will not feel cheated after seeing the movie.” He expressed satisfaction about the result he worked hard to prepare for.

Yellow knit is Valentino at Mue, white shirt and shoes are Dior Homme, pants are N°21 at Mue.

Gathering a lot of buzz due to the meeting of the king of melo, Director Park Jinpyo, and Lee Seunggi, <Love Forecast> is a romance movie about the frustrating one-sided love experienced by unlucky-in-love elementary school teacher Kang Junsoo. Through <I Love You Even If I Die>, Director Park Jinpyo realistically depicted the instinctual love of the elderly in their 70s who by and large were viewed as asexual, and in this movie he questions love and dating these days among young people. “I’ve seen all of Director’s past movies, as I really like his stories of love, <You’re My Sunshine>, <My Love By My side>, <The Murder’s Voice> — those are all movies where you see the person.”

Rather than appearing in film for the first time all cool and dressed accordingly, Seunggi wanted to humbly start out conveying a sense of ‘I’d like to do this kind of acting from hereon, so please watch.’ Therefore, instead of guaranteed box office genres such as criminal/mystery or colorful must-see action adventure variety he chose this honest-to-goodness story about love for his first film. “While it’s a story about true love, often hackneyed and disparaged by people these days, I felt with Director Park, this could be elevated and would never be light in nature.” So we can expect the hot warmth of people’s hearts to fill up the screen, as opposed to flying bullets or soaking blood.

Just as much as the movie is helmed by the young lead stars, there’s some distinction from Director Park’s previous films. The 50-something veteran director, handling with care, pulled out the inherent humor and instinct of the love among young men and women we’ve encountered anywhere around us. Like the world in which we live today where the light of 24-hour mobile phones don’t turn off, the mood is bright and light. “After filming for the movie wrapped, Director Park joked he would become a trendy type of director from now on, ha ha.”

The dating style of people these days – avoiding serious relationships – can be summed up in one word – ‘some.’ Seunggi said he wasn’t really into the word. “They say it’s the trend, but I think there’s a slight cynicism to the idea of being in a ‘some’ relationship, which I guess stems from people’s fears about getting hurt.”

The character Junsoo which Seunggi acted, pretty much enjoys dating and is different from the cool guys of these days. Like a sunflower, he is a guy who looked after one girl over many many years, to the extent that the cuss word ‘for 18 years’ comes out (ship-pal-nyun also translates as ‘bitch’). Director Park took Seunggi to a yellow sunflower forest in Sky Park and created a pretty scene straight out of a children’s story. By the looks of it, he seems to have become enamored with this upstanding young actor.

“I wanted to work together with Lee Seunggi the actor on his first. Seunggi has shown an upstanding model image on broadcast programs, but after meeting him in person, there was a macho-ism about him in addition to his being of sound body and mind. He appears very gentle on the exterior, but there’s a very manly charm about him. Just like that of Junsoo in the movie.”

Like Hugh Grant who appears romantic, in most romance movies, that character gets a vital boost when the actor’s existing image also falls into place. Some of Seunggi’s real ways of speaking and his subtle habits discovered by Director Park in between discussions on set were projected for the movie. “For example, things like the way I say ‘That’s nonsense!’ (also translates into ‘You must be shitting me’) was adjusted to how I spewed it out while we were all laughing. Although Junsoo is not the type of character who has a sense of humor which charms the ladies, there’s definitely a delightfulness to him when you read the script.”

Seunggi’s liking for animation was also reflected. In the movie, figurines are displayed at Junsoo’s home in Toongindong. There’s also a scene of him assembling a model prau. The elementary school where Junsoo works as a teacher is actually his real alma mater. “Since my grandmother lives in that area, I had passed by and seen it, but it was the first time I stepped all the way into the classroom after I graduated from there. It was fascinating. Everything was exactly as it was before. Although some of the features had of course improved, the chalkboard was just like it was back then.” Like the small classroom and toys, sitting at the small desk writing his dictations, did the young elementary school student Seunggi ever imagine he’d become the person he is today?